I think this is the French philosopher Michel Foucault, talking about the Stoics, and how they could provide a ‘new ethics’ for modern life. I believe the talk is from the early 1980s, shortly before Foucault died. You can read transcripts of these talks (without the goddam pan-pipe music) in the collection of his writings Read more…

Just over a decade ago, the government decided that emotional well-being should be taught in British schools. The initiative was part of the Every Child Matters policy shift in 2003, which was dogged from the start by a bureaucratic obsession with acronyms: ECM declared, for example, that schools had a statutory responsibility to turn children Read more…